


Remember This

by Archaeopteryx



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Gen, Insomnia, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-23 05:37:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/922630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archaeopteryx/pseuds/Archaeopteryx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He did his best to avoid sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remember This

He did his best to avoid sleep.

It was a risk he did not like to take, buried in the heart of a nation out for his blood. If he was recognized — which would not be difficult — he could have a bullet in his skull or an alchemized spike through his heart before he was conscious enough to dodge, could wake to the blackening and burning of his own flesh or his own blood turned to nitroglycerin. His enemies were dangerous, and he needed to be alert to survive.

And then, of course, there were the dreams.

It seemed he was cursed to relive those days night after night. His dreams were haunted by the mangled bodies of his family in the moments before pain and the blood rushing from his body dragged him into darkness; Brother, arms spread protectively, silhouetted against the blinding burst of light; the wreckage of his homeland; his confusion and grief and terror as with pain-blurred vision he saw his brother’s arm answering his own movements; the confusion and grief and terror of the doctors who had saved his life in the moments before he killed them.

(He had known of them; of course he had, who in Ishval had not heard of the Rockbells, the Amestrians who treated Ishvalans as their own people, and in his hatred he had killed them — perhaps the only of his murders that he could honestly regret.)

And as if that were not enough, the logic of dreams was not bound to real memories, and so he was forced to watch as his destructive power ripped through his own people — blood bursting from the body of the child whose murder had begun the fighting — his own family torn apart in the blast from an explosion of his making — Brother, turning to smile at his younger sibling in the instant before he —

There were always dreams.

Perhaps they were punishment for using the same accursed alchemy that had destroyed his people. Perhaps they were simply the endless reshuffling of memories burned into his mind by rage and pain and bloodshed.

He did his best to avoid sleep.

But his body demanded it, and as much as he needed to stay alert at all costs, he could not do that when his mind ached with exhaustion. His enemies were dangerous, and he would not survive if he were not in the best possible condition.

He slept when he had to, and faced the dreams as they came.


End file.
